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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371813">Climate Change</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture'>lovetincture</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:27:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Amelia doesn’t usually do this—doesn’t do this at all, as a general rule, and certainly doesn’t do it with women—but there’d been something about the woman she’d met at the bar.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lisa Braeden/Amelia Richardson, Past Sam Winchester/Amelia Richardson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Climate Change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Amelia doesn’t usually do this—doesn’t do this at all, as a general rule, and certainly doesn’t do it with women—but there’d been something about the woman she’d met at the bar. She’d been sitting alone, nursing a beer, spending more time gazing into its amber depths than drinking it, as if that flat, placid surface could tell her anything at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A woman had flowed into the space beside her, caught between Amelia’s body and the empty barstool in the crowded room, voice pitched loud enough for the bartender to hear, ordering a vodka soda with lime.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lemon okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was whipcord lean, tanned arms stretched out in front of her while she waited.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Busy night, huh?” she’d asked Amelia, leaning in to be heard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia caught a whiff of her perfume, something sweet and heavy. She thinks of white gardenias. Thinks of snow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“First time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I don’t—” She laughs. Shakes her head. “I don’t get out much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman laughs. “Me neither.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bartender pours a thin stream of vodka into a lowball glass, crushing a lime into it before filling it up with soda from the tap. He slides it over on a flimsy white napkin, and the woman slides over a five and a one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia watches her fingers close around the rim of the glass, idly catching a last look before turning back to her own drink, growing warm beneath the halogen lights.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman pauses. “You want to join me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia looks at her, smiling, kind face. Glances at the empty booth behind her. “Sure,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My name is Lisa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Amelia.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One thing led to another and around the third drink of the night, they were both lamenting the uptown bar scene.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re so </span>
  <em>
    <span>loud,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Amelia says. She can feel her own voice rising in her excitement—it’s something Don always used to hate. He’d get on her case for yelling, accuse her of being angry, and it stopped her cold every time. She never knew how to explain—I’m not angry, just excited; why can’t you be excited with me?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s old news, dead and buried, but ghosts sometimes do rise up to haunt her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Lisa notices, she doesn’t care. She’s animated and bright-eyed, eyes dancing under the lights. “I know, right? God, you’d think these fucking kids invented drinking. And the </span>
  <em>
    <span>music.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>She pretends to stick her finger down the back of her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs again, and Amelia likes it—likes her laugh, her smile, the scent of her perfume. Likes </span>
  <em>
    <span>her,</span>
  </em>
  <span> and if that isn’t a quiet punch to the sternum.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hates this bar, though, and maybe that’s why she says, “You wanna come back to my place?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lisa blinks at her. She’s surprised. Surprised but not offended, Amelia notices. Maybe even a little pleased, although that might be her own wishful thinking and the beer talking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” Lisa says. “What the hell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me just settle up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pays her tab with the feel of Lisa’s eyes on the back of her neck. She doesn’t hate it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>* * *</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bar was too loud, but her empty house is too quiet, so Amelia puts on some music. She doesn’t know what kind of music you’re supposed to play for this, if you’re supposed to play any at all, but she figures everyone likes the Dave Matthews Band.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you like beer?” she asks, peering up from the refrigerator.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s that smile again. “Who doesn’t?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They settle on her couch, and it’s not as uncomfortable as it could be. It’s been ages since Amelia had anyone over. There’s a small-scale mess on the coffee table, yesterday’s mug beside a rumpled stack of unopened mail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The music plays low, and they drink and talk, draped over separate sides of her small couch, knees nearly bumping in the middle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you lived here long?” Lisa asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What gave me away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lisa gestures with her bottle. “Oh, unpacked boxes, forwarded mail, take your pick.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nosy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia sighs and tips her head back against the couch. “Trying for a new start, I guess. Again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Bad ex?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia laughs the laugh only known to those who can say </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck that guy </span>
  </em>
  <span>with conviction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Bad news," she says, knocking back the rest of her beer. "Sam Winchester." The name sits heavy as a curse on her tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Winchester." Lisa tastes the word. There's something there, something flitting at the corner of her mind, there and gone again. “Like the rifle?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah," Amelia says. "Just like."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want to talk about it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia makes a face, considering it. There’s so much history there, so much to unpack, and she doesn’t know how to even begin to unravel the complicated strings of it. She can’t even unpack her boxes. “There’s not much to tell,” she says at last. “I loved him, and he didn’t love me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ouch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s aware she’s being unfair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t feel the need to be fair. Not tonight, with the room spinning around her, the lights bright and good beer fizzing on her tongue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He stood me up,” Amelia says, rolling her empty beer bottle between two hands. “So I said fuck it. Good riddance, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t mention the husband she left behind—the man who became more of a placeholder than anything else, the one she cut free when she couldn’t deal with the staggering unfairness of what she was doing to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good riddance,” Lisa agrees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, fresh out of good ex stories.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But Ben—?” She stops herself. “Sorry, that was rude.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lisa shrugs, eyebrows raised. “It’s okay. The single mother thing—it’s not news to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s the familiar trace of foot-in-mouth embarrassment. She feels herself blush, and she hates it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lisa looks at her hands, and Amelia looks too. “I was never the settling down type, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia doesn’t know, but she nods all the same. “Must be nice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lisa grins, a warm grin that lights her whole face and crinkles the skin beside her eyes. “It has its perks.” She sighs. “It did. Maybe it still would if I had time for it, you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For dating?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For fun?” Lisa laughs, soft and wistful. She shakes her head and drags a hand through her hair. “God, what am I doing? Sorry, you didn’t invite me over for the sob story.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Amelia shrugs. “I didn’t invite you over for anything in particular. Why not a sob story?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets up, snagging her empty beer bottle, holding out her hand for Lisa’s. Lisa tips the last of the beer into her mouth before handing it over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want another?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I shouldn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘Cause you’re driving? Stay the night. It’s fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lisa hesitates, and Amelia rolls her eyes. Her heart beats faster in her chest. “I’ve got a perfectly good couch, and it’s already half past ten. You’ve got a babysitter, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Lisa says. “To the babysitter and the beer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles again, and Amelia can feel her own lips lifting in answer, pulled by an unseen cord.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="http://twitter.com/lovetincture">Twitter</a>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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